Scan barcode
A review by rosseroo
Pravda Ha Ha: True Travels to the End of Europe by Rory MacLean
4.0
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Canadian travel writer/historian MacLean set out on a road trip through formerly inaccessible Eastern Europe, which he chronicled in his debut book, Stalin's Nose. Some thirty years later, he revisited those places to learn what has taken root in the intervening years. The first third of the book is devoted to Russia, before moving on to Estonia, Transnistria, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, and finally Britain.
He's a travel writer with a good eye and ear for drawing the reader into the scene -- which is a bit of a double-edged sword in this instance, since the book is pretty depressing for anyone with humanist values. The hope raised by the end of the Iron Curtain has largely given way to one authoritarian populist kleptocracy after another, with corruption, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and fake news at the heart of it all.
Throughout the trip, he talks with some exceptional people (and some truly awful ones as well), and while there are glimmers of hope and humanity to be found, it's hard to see how such voices will prevail over the guns and money that dictate who makes the decisions that cause suffering. It's a very uncomfortable read in, and even though America is never really mentioned that I can recall, it's hard not to draw depressing parallels.
He's a travel writer with a good eye and ear for drawing the reader into the scene -- which is a bit of a double-edged sword in this instance, since the book is pretty depressing for anyone with humanist values. The hope raised by the end of the Iron Curtain has largely given way to one authoritarian populist kleptocracy after another, with corruption, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and fake news at the heart of it all.
Throughout the trip, he talks with some exceptional people (and some truly awful ones as well), and while there are glimmers of hope and humanity to be found, it's hard to see how such voices will prevail over the guns and money that dictate who makes the decisions that cause suffering. It's a very uncomfortable read in, and even though America is never really mentioned that I can recall, it's hard not to draw depressing parallels.